The Defiance of Global Commitment: A Complex Social Psychology

Description

The Brexit vote; the election of Trump; the upsurge of European nationalism; the devolution of the Arab Spring; global violence; Chinese expansionism; disruptive climate change; the riotous instabilities of the world capitalist system…While diverse in nature, these events share a common denominator: they are less a failure of policy, and more a complex social psychological reaction to globalization, the result of which presently threatens our survival on Earth. Based on a critical reading of Freud’s Civilization and its discontents, The defiance of global commitment constructs a complex social psychology of how people all over the world are addressing globalization. Drawing on the latest advances in the cognitive, social, and complexity sciences, this timely volume presents a global model of defiance and the triangular tensions between nostalgic retreat, global aggression, and civil society, as manifested in forms ranging from nostalgic resentment and LGBTQI issues to racism and ecological aggression. Revealing how globalization and its discontents manifest the darker reaches of the human psyche and its conflicted relations with others, this insightful monograph will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers, interested in fields such as globalization studies, complexity sciences and social psychology. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents Figures Acknowledgment Introduction Commitment Defiance Civilization and its discontents The defiance of global commitment Part I Oceanic feeling and the pursuit of happiness Chapter 1 Oceanic commitment and the global: fostering a complex systems view of the world Oceanic feeling An archaeology of mind Embracing a complex systems view Chapter 2 We are condemned to seek happiness What is happiness? Our assessment of Freud’s argument Civilization, reality, and happiness Liberal society and the problem of religion Part II Globalization: a complex social psychology A note on method Chapter 3 The impossible promise of globalization: globalization and fear of the global The problem of globalization Postindustrialization The world capitalist system The complexities of globalization Global network society Globalization’s impossible promise Chapter 4 The impossible promise of globalization: nostalgic retreat and the importance of society The evolutionary necessity of society The call of nostalgic primitivism The restriction of human instinct Part III Idstincts/drive and repression/ resistance Chapter 5 Idstincts and drives: an embodied-mind approach Our approach to theory Instincts and drives Idstincts and societal drives Conclusion Chapter 6 Repression and resistance: a complex social psychology of global power On any given Sunday Repression Id-ego-superego or Eros-Thanatos? Everything is (NOT) repression Resistance and defiance A global model of resistance Social problems as complex systems Conclusion Part IV Sex, aggression, and death Our research questions Chapter 7 Sex, sexuality, and gender A bit of hermeneutics Defining our terms Freud’s patriarchal heterosexism Critiquing Freud Overcoming patriachal heterosexism Chapter 8 Aggression, otherness, and death The ring of malice A bit of hermeneutics On aggression Chapter 9 The Global Strongarms versus global civil society Précis de nos recherches The tripartite problem The Global Strongarms The adjacent possible Index